


Whatever We Need It To Be

by stardustandswimmingpools



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Clint Barton-centric, F/M, It just sorta happened, Love, Male-Female Friendship, Romantic Friendship, What Happened in Budapest, and it will heretofore be referred to as, calvinball with timelines, fair warning this isn't exactly clintasha, i have officially decided that the relationship between clint and nat, is frankly too deep and intense for a label, laura is a bamf, never thought i'd be writing clintasha content but here we are, never thought i'd write a budapest fic either, spoiler-free!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2020-02-09 23:42:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18648508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardustandswimmingpools/pseuds/stardustandswimmingpools
Summary: "So, Laura talked to me last week while you were getting the root beer," she says."I figured," Clint says. "She warn you against working with me? Call me volatile and insane? Because that's a fair claim, you know.""Not exactly." Nat gives him a dry grin. "She told me I have her blessing."





	Whatever We Need It To Be

**Author's Note:**

> I am happy to announce that this fic contains zero (0) Endgame spoilers! I won't say anything about it, either. I just felt inspired to write this after some... stuff happened.  
> ANYHOW. I spent a long time trying to figure out why Clint & Natasha were so Like That when Clint had a family and a wife and stuff, and I've solved the mystery! For me, anyway.  
> I read a Doctor Who fic once that referred to Clara and Eleven's relationship as a romantic friendship and I was like AHA! that's exactly what it is! so I've decided that's what Clint & Nat have - it makes sense, because they're not in love, but they're obviously something more than just best friends. But I am 100% in favor of Clint/Laura and Clint having healthy relationships with the women in his life. Plus, if you couldn't tell, I love Clint Barton. So this is a gift to you all. Enjoy!

Clint is still figuring out Natasha when he meets Laura, and it's barely even a contest.

Natasha is: mysterious, confusing, intense, sometimes bitchy.

Laura is: kind, gentle, funny, clever. 

Obviously Clint falls in love with her. He'd be an absolute idiot not to.

But Laura manages to figure them out from her very first meeting with Nat — before he even figures it out himself.

"So this is the famous Natasha," she says. Her smile is so wide Clint's cheeks ache in sympathy. "Clint talks about you all the time."

"And you still like him?" Nat teases, with an easy smile. Clint wonders if she gets exhausted by the constant playacting. Then Laura laughs, like they're in on some inside joke Clint's not privy to, and Clint wonders if Nat's even acting.

"Clint," Laura says, "do me a favor and go grab the root beer from the downstairs fridge?"

To say that Clint is hesitant to leave his girlfriend with his best friend is an understatement, but Laura's communicating some meaningful thing with her eyes that Clint can pretty much guess amounts to  _ We're going to talk alone now _ .

He goes and gets the root beer. He lingers in the basement for a few minutes, lest he interrupt some serious conversation, and then slowly takes the stairs back up to the main floor. Nat and Laura are not in the house. He peers out the window.

There they are, sitting across from each other and laughing. And Laura is showing Natasha some picture. Clint pushes the screen door out and slides out onto the front porch.

"Root beer," he announces. "What, are you sharing dirty secrets?"

"You look great in a pink wig, Clint," Nat says, deadpan. "Really, that should be your everyday look."

"You showed her that?" Clint says, appalled, to Laura. She reaches across and pats his cheek, then steals a root beer from his hand.

"She was a pink-wig-Clint virgin! The world deserves to see the true you," Laura says solemnly.

"I can't believe I like you," Clint says.

"I can't believe she likes  _ you, _ " Nat says. Laura's and Clint's eyes meet, and this time he gets the silent communication:  _ we need to talk later. _

When Natasha has finally taken her leave, Laura drains her bottle of root beer and smiles at Clint. "I just want you to know that I'm not the jealous type," she says.

Clint wonders if later has become now, and this is the Talk. But it's kind of a strange opener.

"Okay," he says carefully. "Uh, me neither. Unless that makes me seem weak. In which case I am a very jealous type."

"Clint," Laura laughs. She sobers up and gives him an earnest look that he feels in his toes. "It's okay about Natasha. I understand. I won't always be around. You've got your superhero stuff, and you clearly have some serious backstory with her."

"Wait, what?"

"I just don't want you to think I love you any less because of Natasha," Laura says firmly. "And I don't believe you love me any less, either."

"Laura, what are you even talking about? I love you  _ only. _ I love you the most. I love you more than anyone has ever loved anyone. Don't talk about cheating and — and I don't even know what!" Clint hurries around the table and grabs Laura's hands in his own. "I love  _ you _ and you alone. Okay?"

Laura gives him a sweet smile that looks a little too much like Nat's: like she knows a secret about him. "Okay," she says. She kisses him, and when they break, she says softly, "I'm just saying, there's room in your heart for more than one woman. And I trust you. Maybe that's crazy, but I do. I know you'll come back to me. But if you need to be with her —"

"Stop," Clint says sharply. "No more. There's nothing between me and Nat and there never will be. My heart belongs right here." He puts a finger against Laura's chest, right on her heart. "With yours."

Laura lets the subject drop, but Clint has a feeling it's not going to leave him alone.

A week later, Fury puts Nat and Clint on a mission together. Budapest, he says. To take down a group of terrorists planning an attack. Quick, easy job; in and out, shouldn't take more than a day.

The flight to Budapest is uneventful. The jet has preprogrammed coordinates, so all Clint and Nat have to do is sit and wait. They play many rounds of Go Fish. They take ugly pictures of each other. Around hour eight, after sitting in comfortable silence for about half an hour, Natasha speaks up.

"So, Laura talked to me last week while you were getting the root beer," she says.

"I figured," Clint says. "She warn you against working with me? Call me volatile and insane? Because that's a fair claim, you know."

"Not exactly." Nat gives him a dry grin. "She told me I have her blessing."

"What?" Clint says.

"She kept saying she understood if there was something between us, and she knew you were loyal to her but it was okay with her if —"

"Oh, god," Clint groans. "She gave you that talk too?"

Natasha chuckles. "I thought she was asking me to break up with you for her."

"I don't know why she thinks there's something happening with us," Clint says.

Natasha is silent for a moment. "Yeah," she says. "Weird."

Clint gets a vague sense he's said the wrong thing. Natasha doesn't talk to him for the rest of the flight.

 

Budapest is supposed to be an easy job. Instead, it's day three and Clint is hiding in a corner of the scaffolding covered by a thin sheet of metal, praying the leader of the terrorist group won't pull it back and find him. Allegedly, Natasha has a brilliant plan, but Clint has yet to understand what it is.

There’s a commotion from outside Clint’s hiding place. Chairs scrape against the floor as if being rapidly vacated. Then Clint hears Nat’s voice. She's speaking in Hungarian, but Clint's brain auto-translates.

"You don't want to shoot," she says smoothly. "Not with the intel I have."

"Talk fast," one of the terrorists snarls. The leader, if Clint recognizes the voice correctly.

"I work for SHIELD under the pretense of loyalty," Nat says. Her voice rings out clear in the silence. "I've been planning to infiltrate them, but I didn't have the horsepower. Gentlemen, I think we can help each other."

"What do we want with SHIELD?" someone growls.

"I know their secrets. All of them. Access codes, weapons facilities, things your brains could hardly comprehend. What do I care about America? Bomb them if you want. But if you do it from here, they're sure to find you. They already have. Work with me. I can get you into SHIELD. An attack from home turf — they'll never see it coming."

"Why should we believe you?" the leader says. "You attacked us."

"I have to make it seem like I'm working for SHIELD," Natasha says. "If my partner knew my true intentions, I'd have to kill him."

"Prove it," the terrorist leader says. There's a slamming sound, like something hitting a table. "Prove it right now or we will shoot you through every limb."

"Of course." Footsteps. And moments before it happens, Clint understands.

The sheet of metal is peeled back, and Clint's hiding place is revealed. Peering into his face is Natasha, her expression a cold mask of stoicism.

"Barton," she says. "Time for you to die."

Clint does not agree.

His head and heart are warring with aggressive intensity — head arguing that Natasha has been bad all along and she's about to kill him unless he takes her down first, and heart volleying that Nat has always been stellar at what she does, and this is an act like every other.

That's the thing about Nat. Clint can never tell.

She yanks him out of his hiding spot with brutal force and throws him carelessly at one of the men in the group.

"Natasha, stop this," Clint says lowly. She turns and looks at him, and her eyes are cruel.

"Tie him up," she says flatly. "And let me pledge my loyalty to you now. No guns," she adds, as one of the men begins to offer one up. "I kill him my way."

As Clint is bound, Nat crouches and stares him down. "I am sorry you had to hear that much," she says, with false sympathy. "You are a worthy partner, and therefore a foolish enemy. Farewell, Barton."

And in one swift motion, she pulls out one of her Widow's Bites and slams it against his forehead.

Everything goes dark.

 

When he wakes, he's in the jet, and someone is holding ice to his head. His eyes open groggily. Nat's face looms over him. He jerks by instinct and rolls out of bed, prepared to fight.

But Nat just looks sad.

"I'm sorry," she says. "I really am on your side."

Clint can hardly breathe. He doesn't know what to believe.

"I think you're a little too good at your job," he says cautiously.

Nat doesn't laugh. "I didn't want to do it. The electricity isn't fatal, but they didn't know that. I just had to win their trust long enough to break into their supplies and bust them."

"And you had to sell me out to do it?"

Nat stands up, and Clint resists the screaming urge to recoil. She walks over to him and takes one of his hands in hers.

"I'm sorry," she says again. Clint registers that she really  _ is  _ sorry, if she's said it twice. And other things, too: her hand is freezing. How long has she been holding that ice? And her eyes are red. Her grip is vicelike on him.

"When you didn't wake up…" Nat winces. "You scared me."

"You scared me first," Clint says. His heart feels like it's been hit with one of those Widow's Bites: jerky and unstable.

Laura flashes in his mind:  _ if you need to be with her...I trust you. _

"Don't do that again," he says. "Anything else, but not that. We're in this together. I- I need you. I need to be able to trust you."

Natasha's head drops, and her hair falls forward. To her feet, she says, "There's a chance you're in the wrong business, Barton."

"I don't think so," he says. "Not as long as we're together."

Nat squeezes his hand. "Don't tell Laura," she says, but it sounds more like a question.

"No. Laura understands. Better than, uh, I do, actually." Clint chuckles self-consciously. "I don't really get it. But I love her and I need her. And I need you too. I think that's allowed, if Laura says it is."

"I'd hate to get on her bad side," Nat agrees. She looks up at Clint, then down at their hands, conjoined. "And this is...what? A placeholder? An aperitif?"

"Something else," Clint says. "I don't know. Whatever we need it to be. I have your back and you have mine."

"Dangerous way to live," Nat says quietly. "What if I really am a traitor?"

"You're not," Clint says. "You owe it to me. We're saving each other, see."

Nat seems to grapple with this concept for a second. "Okay," she says. "Whatever we need it to be."

She leans forward and wraps Clint in a tight hug.

"This is fine, for now," she says, lips pressed to his shoulder.

And it is fine, for now.

Clint decides he doesn't have to understand Natasha. He loves her anyway. And over the years, they fill many roles for each other. Lovers once or twice. Partners in crime, frequently. Co-workers every so often. But for the most part, they stick to being best friends. Best friends...and a little something.

Natasha's not Clint's girlfriend, but she's not just a friend. He knows it. Nat knows it. Laura knows it. But they live in a healthy balance. Natasha and Laura don't just coexist; they thrive. Clint kind of thinks he's the third wheel in the relationship. When Clint proposes to Laura, Nat is his best woman at the wedding. When, seven months later, Lila is born, Natasha brings over an armload of gifts.

And on the other side of the coin, Laura is always there to welcome him home from a mission. She's the one who cleans off the grime from his face and draws him a hot bath when he really ought to be drawing one for her. She is endlessly patient with him. In return, Clint is honest. He tells her everything about Natasha. He's always worried she'll break, but she never even seems upset — not even surprised, ever.

"I told you," she says, for the millionth time. "I understand."

Clint thinks that the women in his life are way too intelligent for anyone's good. But he loves them both in their own separate ways. And that's all he can give.

He thinks it's enough.

**Author's Note:**

> hopefully this fic healed your heart a little! i love clint barton with my entire soul. and natasha and laura, as well. anyway. i'm on tumblr @vivilevone so you can hit me up there, and feel free to talk to me about whatever (i have seen Endgame as of yesterday so you can talk to me about that, too!). If you liked this do me a solid and leave a comment so I can feel the love! catch you later!


End file.
